“Doesn’t it indicate I have been doing some serious reading?”

No, Soundhill. No, it does not.

This is because you have completely ignored points 1) and 2), and I’m still not convinced you understand the limits of the placebo effect.

I am not going to waste my time reminding you what I said, or what you said. You can scroll up as easily as I can.

The goal isn’t to be able to spit references and copied/pasted text at me, it is to actually comprehend the subjects in question. Specifically, the three points I noted you ought to be able to understand at the end of your reading were aimed at getting you to understand the merits of homeopathy (none) as compared to conventional medicine (considerable).

I am concerned that you saw fit to respond by saying, “look, I have read a 56-page PhD thesis. This indicates I an a serious reader.”

On a separate topic:

Of course vitamins and supplements tend to be less hazardous than prescription drugs. People are only meant to take prescription drugs as directed by a doctor, in order to treat a medical condition. Some of these drugs may have side-effects (sometimes serious side-effects), as indicated. Yet they are a lesser evil than the conditions they are prescribed to treat.

By contrast, vitamins and supplements do not require a doctor’s prescription, and do not generally have side-effects. Nor, however, do they have any effect upon medical conditions, except where these are caused or influenced by deficiencies in particular nutrients or whatever. If a person is not deficient in those vitamins/nutrients/whatever in the first place, supplements will not have any health benefits.

Unfortunately, slick marketing means that vast quantities of supplements can be sold regardless of whether they’re needed, to people who’re convinced they will improve or safeguard their health. Capitalism in action, I’m afraid.

Soundhill, I really have no interest in discussing Mercola with you. Experience has taught me that it is a fruitless and frustrating conversation.

I have suggested you read up on the placebo effect, conventional medicine and homeopathy, in order to better understand these subjects.

I have suggested this because I genuinely care about your wellbeing, and am concerned what your attitudes towards these topics might lead you to do if your medical situation ever took a serious turn.

@Chris Banks wrote: “I encourage you to do some serious reading until you understand just why relying on the placebo effect alone (which is exactly what you’re doing if you use homeopathy or, well, pretty much anything sold by Mercola) can be so very hazardous to one’s health.”

The right to free speech does not give you the right to malign a business without supporting facts.

Mercola is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. He is licensed to prescribe pharmaceutical drugs and do surgical operations. By taking the osteopathic medicine option he is also trained more in attempting to prevent people from getting to the stage where they need drugs or operations. He helps people with better vitamin and mineral &c options than they may get in the supermarkets and chemists. He also gives out much free advice on his website. He says it is the same he gives to patients who visit him. He funds his website advice by offering products and people support him as thanks.

Anything out of balance may be hazardous to your health, and Mercola’s advice
leads people around that. Sometimes he has changed his advice. So does traditional medicine.

Vitamins and supplements tend to be less hazardous than prescription drugs, if you read Medsafe.govt.nz

http://www.cochrane.dk/research/theses/tendal_thesis2010.pdf

“many commonly used treatments have an
effect of 0.1 to 0.5 compared with placebo.
For example, the effect of acet-
aminophen [paracetamol] on pain in patients
with osteoarthritis is
SMD −0.13 (95% CI, −0.22 to −0.04),
5
the effect of antide-
pressants on mood in trials with ac-
tive placebos is SMD 0.17 (95% CI,
0.00-0.34),
6
the effect of physical and
chemical methods to reduce house dust
mite allergens on asthma symptoms is
SMD −0.01 (95% CI, −0.10 to 0.13),
7
whereas the effect of inhaled cortico-
steroids on asthma symptoms is rela-
tively large, SMD −0.49 (95% CI, −0.56
to −0.43).”

Chris I had that ref on openparachute in a thread where your name appears. Doesn’t it indicate I have been doing some serious reading?

Just to clarify some things you really need to understand, Soundhill, and which you really ought to be able to grasp by reading the wikipedia pages in question:

1) Any perceived benefits of homeopathy are entirely down to the placebo effect.
2) Conventional medicines must demonstrate benefits beyond those of the placebo effect (often demonstrated through the use of double-blind trials) in order to be approved for use.
3) The placebo effect is not as powerful as you seem to think it is.

I encourage you to do some serious reading until you understand just why relying on the placebo effect alone (which is exactly what you’re doing if you use homeopathy or, well, pretty much anything sold by Mercola) can be so very hazardous to one’s health.

@Chris, as I said before Mercola’s advice changes as does that of other doctors. As for vaccines and autism the CDC may not be honest.

Cloud seeding does happen.

Homeopathy may be largely placebo, but so are conventional treaments if you read teh wiki on placebo.

Agenda21 may be a bit overdone like the year 2000 computer trouble was averted and Mercola’s early letter to Pediatrics which I referenced about the possible HIV AIDS scenario.

It is strange the Morgellon’s has arisen since Bt corn. Monsanto are changing what they are doing. They are no longer supposed to be putting antibiotic resistance genes in their crops. But they are still in most of the crops. They are spending twice as much on conventional as GM agriculture.

@Chris Price

Yes Mercola cannot claim a health benefit of a food because his business competes, and the big company lawyers are on to it. Nobody seems to have written a wiki about this yet, but what do you think of this sort of competition and what a milk seller may say about its product not having genetically modified milk stimulating hormone in it?

https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/_file/aglaw/Publications_Library/The_Controversy_Over_rBST_Milk_and_Absence_Labeling.pdf

02/16/2005 – Living Fuel RX(TM) and Coconut Oil Products – For marketing products for a medical use which classifies those products as drugs in violation of 201(g)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.[51]

09/21/2006 – Optimal Wellness Center – For both labeling / marketing health supplements for purposes which would render them to be classified as regulated drugs as well failing to provide adequate directions for use upon the label in the event that they were legally sold as drugs.[52]

03/11/2011 – Re: Meditherm Med2000 Infrared cameras – For marketing a telethermographic camera for medical purposes which have not been FDA approved.[53]

12/16/2011 – Milk Specialties Global – Wautoma – Failure to have tested for purity, strength, identity, and composition “Dr. Mercola Vitamin K2” and others.[54]

1) Chemtrails.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory
http://www.donotlink.com/bn3e
Mercola has published many, many articles telling people that the world’s governments are secretly dumping nefarious chemicals on their heads out of airplanes, for

2) Homeopathy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
http://www.donotlink.com/d4k1
Mercola has written a good deal about this and sells a great many homeopathic products. The scientific and medical communities are pretty universal in their condemnation of homeopathy, as there is neither evidence that it works (ie no better than the placebo effect), nor any conceivable mechanism by which it might work.

3) Agenda 21
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21
http://www.donotlink.com/d4k4
Specifically, the belief that Agenda 21 is secretly a conspiracy to depopulate the planet (often by means of chemtrails or fluoride).

4) “Vaccines are evil” (and cause autism)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversies
http://www.donotlink.com/d4k6
An actively dangerous piece of marketing there, considering that the diseases vaccinated against can and will kill children. Needless to say, there is not a shred of scientific evidence to support Mercola’s various assertions about the dangers of vaccines.

5) “HIV does not cause AIDS”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_denialism
http://www.donotlink.com/d4kc
Or maybe it does, depending on what he’s selling. In any case, don’t trust the medical establishment, trust Mercola and buy his “cures.”

6) Morgellon’s Disease
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons
http://www.donotlink.com/d4kd
Morgellon’s Disease does not, in fact, exist. At least, not as described by Mercola.

No doubt there are innumerable other bogus and perhaps outright dangerous claims made by Mercola, but these seem like the ones most likely to get you to take a step back and ask yourself “Why am I listening to what this quack has to say?” “Why am I disseminating his material to unsuspecting people?”